Case Number 19615

FLASHFORWARD: THE COMPLETE SERIES

The Charge

What did you see?

Opening Statement

How's this for high concept: In an instant, everyone on the planet gets a
glimpse of his or her future, and the world is forever changed. That's the
premise of Robert J. Sawyer's 1999 novel Flash Forward, loosely adapted
into a TV series for ABC by Brannon Braga (Star Trek: Voyager) and David
S. Goyer (Blade: Trinity).

Despite tons of hype and lavish production values, the series
FlashForward didn't make it to a second season, but all 22 episodes are
now here on this five-disc set. What did you see?

Facts of the Case

On Oct. 5, for just over two minutes, the entire human race blacked out. This
led to approximately 20 million deaths, from people who were in airplanes, in
traffic, walking up and down stairs, etc. In Los Angeles, a group of FBI agents
investigate the crisis. While comparing notes, they realize that not only did
they all have odd visions while blacked out, but their visions were connected,
and they're not the only ones. It's soon discovered that everyone on the planet
saw about two minutes' worth of April 29, six months into the future.

Now, while humanity grapples with knowing its fate (or is it?) the FBI has
been tasked with finding out how and why this happened, and -- this is the big
question -- will it happen again?

Those whose lives were affected include:

* FBI Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes, Shakespeare In Love)
becomes a central figure in the investigation, because his future vision had him
looking over a board full of clues on the wall to his office. His
future-memories of these clues lead him and his follow agents into uncovering
the conspiracy that might have caused the blackout.

* Dr. Olivia Benford (Sonya Walger, Lost), Mark's loving wife, except
that during her flash forward, she was with another man.

* Lloyd Simcoe (Mark Davenport, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's
End), a genius scientist who might have something to do with the cause of
the blackouts. Further complicating matters is that he's the man Olivia saw in
her vision.

* Demetri Noh (John Cho, Star Trek (2009)), Mark's FBI partner, who
saw nothing during the blackout. Does that mean he'll be dead in six months?

* Janis Hawk (Christine Woods, The Madness of Jane), another FBI
agent, who saw herself pregnant in the future, even though she has no current
plan to have a baby.

* Chief Wedek (Courtney B. Vance, Extraordinary Measures), Mark's
boss at the FBI, who encourages the agents to use their future knowledge and
bend the rules, but only to a point.

* Bryce Varley (Zachary Knighton, Surfer, Dude), who works with
Olivia at the hospital. He saw romance in his future, snapping him out of his
suicidal funk and giving him a new, positive outlook.

* Nicole Kirby (Peyton List, Mad Men), babysitter and family friend
for Mark and Olivia. She saw herself being drowned in the future.

* Aaron Stark (Brian F. O'Byrne, Brooklyn's Finest), Mark's friend,
whose daughter died in Afghanistan years earlier. In his flash forward, though,
he saw her alive. How is that possible?

* Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan, The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers), a mysterious man with a connection to Lloyd. He knows many secrets,
and no one's sure whose side he's on.

The Evidence

Everybody seems determined to compare FlashForward to TV megahit
Lost. There's a good reason for that, though. Knowing that the story of
Nothing-Makes-Sense Island was ending, ABC hoped to entice all the Lost
fans with a series calculated to be as much likeLost as possible. Don't
believe me? Consult the following chart:

Lost began with a catastrophic plane crash.FlashForward
began with multiple catastrophic plane and car crashes.

Lost introduced a central mystery of "What is the
island?"FlashForward introduced a central mystery of
"What caused the blackout?"

Lost had a "WTF" appearance of a polar bear.FlashForward had a "WTF" appearance of kangaroo.

Lost made headlines worldwide by introducing "flash
forwards" into its story.FlashForward, well, just look at the
title.

And so on. The secret conspiracies, the outrageous plot twists, the
unrequited romantic longings, the over-the-top cliffhangers, the surprise
connections between seemingly unrelated characters -- it all seems like the
creators took a long, hard look at what made Lost popular and attempted
to recreate similar and equally profitable results. Fortunately, this series
apes Lost more in tone and style than in plot and character, so there are
a lot of interesting themes and ideas of its own, mostly having to do with the
"seeing your own future" bit.

Conveniently, none of the main cast had someone close to them die among the
20 million dead in the blackout, so we don't have many funeral scenes or
dealing-with-loss drama. OK, Lloyd lost his ex-wife in the blackout, leaving him
custody of their son, but he's not that broken up about it. This all
might not be entirely believable, but it does free up the characters to deal
with matters at hand without dwelling on tragedy. Conversely, it also means that
sometimes they seem to forget that 20 million people just died. I suppose this
is a flaw viewers will have to live with if we want to follow these folks
through all their crazy adventures, up to their future reveals in six
months.

The characters spend most of their time asking "What caused the
blackout?" "Will there be another blackout?" and, of course,
"What did you see?" Not asked out loud as often, but certainly on the
minds of everyone involved, is the question, "If you know the future, can
you change it?" Yes, it's the old free-will-versus-destiny thing that shows
up in so many time travel shows, which this essentially is. After much fretting
about whether the future could be changed, a major twist occurs in the episode
"The Gift," which appears at first to determine an answer as to
whether the future is set in stone. The drama continues, though, because this
revelation is either a relief or a fear for the characters, based on whether
they saw something horrifying or uplifting. As the series continues, it
introduces the intriguing concept of "course correction," suggesting
that if someone tries to change the future, the universe will somehow set events
in motion to change it back to what the character saw. This is pretty clever,
actually, in that anytime a major event occurs that might change the future,
there's always a "what if" lingering over the characters' heads, so
that they're still haunted by their visions.

There are times during the show when I had questions that I thought the
characters would ask, but they never did. If anyone uttered the word
"paradox" during the series run, I must have missed it. It was
certainly on my mind, however. Take Mark's board of clues. He sees it in his
vision, and he sets forth recreating it, which leads to evidence that drives the
entire plot forward. The paradox is that if he'd never seen the future, he never
would have built the board, which would never have set the plot forward to begin
with. So, where did it come from originally? Throughout the show, the characters
change their behavior based on what they've seen in their futures, making
decisions they otherwise wouldn't. In doing so, they are creating the
circumstances of their flash forwards, either intentionally or unintentionally.
I'm not saying this is a bad -- it's actually quite fascinating and it prompts
viewers to ask if they'd do the same thing -- it's just that this is never
discussed by the characters, which you think it would be. Along similar lines,
the obvious question "why didn't someone intentionally look at the lottery
numbers or sports scores during their flash forward" goes unasked.

Another common complaint about the series is that the audience tends to know
things before the characters do, so that viewers have to wait for the people on
screen to catch up to them. This is because there are so many characters and so
many intersecting plotlines that when two characters are wondering what another
two are up to, the audience already knows that because the folks watching at
home are the only ones privy to all the characters. Additionally, the dialogue
is not as strong as it could be. The FBI characters have a lot of standard cop
show lines, always talking about nailing suspects and sorting out evidence. A
lot of time is spent at the hospital with Olivia and Bryce, and there's a lot of
medical show dialogue, about caring for patients and the stress of working late
hours. It's not that the dialogue is bad, it's just ordinary.

Despite the show's flaws, as I kept watching, I wanted to know what happened
next. The question of whether the future could be changed is so pervasive that
the suspense builds as the end of the season nears, because it's always in
question whether the flash forwards will occur as seen, or if something else
will happen. The show keeps you guessing right up to the last episode. The big
finale is exciting, but some plot threads are left unsatisfactorily dangling.
The closing shot, however, is ambiguous in a good way, and can be either a
definitive ending or a "to be continued," depending on how you choose
to interpret it.

Another plus of this series is its blockbuster action. Hoping that the show
would be the next big hit, the network clearly dumped a stinkload of money into
this thing, because the look of the series is big, glossy and lavish, and the
action set pieces are over-the-top. The opening disaster sequence in the
premiere episode, filmed on an actual L.A. overpass, is an elaborate combination
of practical effects and CGI, starting with vehicular mayhem and explosions, and
building up to mass destruction on a citywide scale. Other episodes make with
some sweet gunfights and pyrotechnics, but they saved the best for last in the
season finale, with a huge John Woo-inspired shootout that totally destroys one
of the show's long-standing sets.

Joseph Fiennes does a solid enough job as our stalwart cop hero. The
character has a lot going on. In addition to leading the investigation, he's
also worrying about the stability of his family, and the fates of his FBI pals.
He's the hero that the show revolves around. Unfortunately, this means that
Olivia, who is otherwise a heroine of the show, ends up looking like the bad guy
because she was with Lloyd in her flash forward. Mark is so built up as the hero
that it's hard to understand how Olivia is eventually torn, even as we see their
relationship strained, it's still difficult to buy.

Lloyd is a character in over his head, right from the beginning. You think
it'd be stressful enough that he's suddenly left to raise his son, but then he
has to deal with his future after seeing Olivia. This, naturally, causes tension
among him, Mark, and Olivia whenever they meet. Moreover, Lloyd's high tech
science experiments might have been the cause, or part of the cause, of the
blackout. At one point, Lloyd goes on TV and announces his involvement. This
causes a worldwide backlash, with commentators tastelessly comparing him to
Hitler or Bin Laden, and it spurs a bunch of thugs to kidnap him and Simon.
After this, though, it's life as usual for Lloyd. He meets with Olivia at the
hospital, he offers help at the FBI, and he even takes his son to the park with
no problem. His global infamy is completely forgotten, and that bugged me. Admit
it -- no matter what your political or ethical leanings, if you saw Bin Laden
sitting on a bench at your neighborhood park, you'd at least react.

Aside from the main plot, one of the strongest subplots is about what will
happen to Demetri. He saw nothing in his flash forward. OK, that could mean
he'll be asleep in the future, but as time goes on, more and more information is
revealed, and Demetri comes to believe that yes, it means he's going to die on a
date before the flash forward date. He faces his destiny sooner than the other
characters in "Garden of Forking Paths," one of the show's most
suspenseful and engaging episodes. It's unfortunate, then, that his behavior is
inconsistent up to that point. At times, he's hoping to cheat death, by doing
everything he can to avoid his fate. At other times, he has a devil-may-care
attitude, believing that nothing he does matters because he's just going to die
anyway. His relationship with his fiancée is also inconsistent, going back
and forth from madly in love at some times and angrily bickering at other times.
OK, so a lot of real couples are probably like this, but it still stinks of poor
continuity.

Bryce is one of the few main characters whose subplot isn't life-or-death.
He sees himself in love with a beautiful woman. This changes his entire outlook
on life, and he goes to ridiculous lengths to find her, based on what few clues
he's able to remember from his vision. Bryce also has to deal with some serious
health problems, but this wasn't dealt with as seriously or in depth as it could
have been. That's all right, though, because Bryce's upbeat romantic pursuits
made for a comforting counterpoint to the murders and conspiracies everywhere
else in the show.

Like Mark, Janis spends most of this show as the stalwart FBI agent, working
to solve the mystery and hunt bad guys. She has quite a number of secrets,
though. One big one is revealed early on, demonstrating her confusion of seeing
herself pregnant in the future. In the latter third of the series, the writers
take her character in some truly outrageous new directions, with one of the
biggest plot twists in the whole show. The scripts demand a lot from actress
Christine Woods, but she pulls it off, ably portraying so many varying aspects
of the character without any scene or twist feeling out of place.

Aaron has one of the more "out there" subplots, as he's driven to
learn how his flash forward, in which he sees his dead daughter still alive, is
possible. This takes his character into a tangent far removed from the rest of
the cast. He discovers a conspiracy -- a different one from the conspiracy the
FBI is investigating -- in the guise of a private security firm called Jericho
(Jake and Hawkins do not have cameos). Suddenly, it's like this show is like
something out of one of the Bourne movies, as Aaron faces off with high tech
thugs and undercover agents, and he ends up sneaking overseas and all the way
into the Afghanistan war zone. This subplot isn't without its interesting
moments, but it feels like it's part of a completely different series than
FlashForward.

Then there's Simon. The bonus features reveal that actor Dominic Monaghan
worked together with the writers, who created the character based on his
suggestions. It shows. Simon is a ladies' man, he's ruthless and deadly, he's
secretive and mysterious, he has a rogue attitude and is sarcastic towards
authority -- basically, he's the type of badass character actors love to play.
When he's first introduced, he acts menacing, and I thought, "Here's the
villain." As the show progressed though, it's clear that he's kind of half
good guy and half bad guy, and no one on either side can fully trust him.
Similarly, viewers will likely also be torn about Simon. Some will find him to
be all dark and cool, while others might find him obnoxious and monstrous.

Honestly, the character I enjoyed the most was Wedek, the FBI chief. At
first he's the typical "cop show" chief, barking orders at the agents
and so on. In one episode, though, he travels to Washington D.C. to defend his
actions, and it's revealed just how different he is than the rest of his peers.
He's actually encouraging his agents to bend the rules and think outside the
box, whereas characters like this are usually the stern bureaucrats, beholden
only to rules and procedure. Wedek, on the other hand, is one of the first to
realize that the world has permanently changed, and he knows his team has to
change with it. Yes, there are times when he scolds his agents for going to far
in their rule-bending, but it's established that he has good reason to. Also,
because he is one of the few characters who saw something ordinary in his flash
forward, that makes him come across as more of down-to-Earth
"everyman" character, despite his lofty leadership role.

For a shiny, glossy, multimillion-dollar series, the picture and audio are
outstanding on these discs, with vivid colors and deep blacks, and sound that
brings to life the many explosions and gunfights. Disc two features two
promotional extras, no doubt carried over from the previously-released
"Season One, Volume One" set. These are loaded with spoilers for the
second half of the season, so be careful if you're going into the show blind.
The two-part episode "Revelation Zero" gets a jokey commentary from
Monaghan and producer Jessika Borsiczky (Revelations) on disc three. The
remainder of the bonus material can be found on disc five, with a series of
behind-the-scenes featurettes, with cast and producer interviews, and a look at
the insane amount of work that went into some of the big set pieces. Another
featurette follows Japanese actress Yuko Takeuchi for a day on the set, as this
was her first American acting job. "Interviews from the Mosaic
Collective" are a bunch of fictional interviews with previously unseen
characters from around the globe talking about their flash forwards.
"Kangaroo" has the show's creators dodging answers as to what the
kangaroo has to do with anything, along with behind-the-scenes footage of the
critter hopping around the set. Some deleted scenes and a blooper reel finish
off the extras.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Nitpicks: * What time of day does the blackout occur? It seems to be in
the morning, with the characters just starting the workday, but there are
references to a major sporting event happening at that time, and kids are
apparently home from school. * At one point, Wedek rebukes Mark and makes
him turn in his gun and badge. Later, Mark's back to running around in full-on
supercop mode. When did his punishment get resolved? * What's the deal
with the Persian woman in Hong Kong? How does she know everything she knows? Why
does she have all those bodyguards? That's a plot thread that never went
anywhere. * Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane cameos in two
episodes as an FBI agent. Why is he here? What is he supposed to be adding to
the story? Doesn't he have, like, ten shows of his own on Fox he should be
working on?

Closing Statement

I'm torn. There's a lot to enjoy about FlashForward. It has an
interesting premise, crazy plot twists, and some cool action here and there.
There's also a lot that frustrates. The scripts take a little too long to get
from point A to point B, the bland dialogue slows things down at times, and some
plot holes are too plot hole-y for my tastes. The show entertains, but it's
disposable entertainment. In that case, make it a rental, not a purchase.

The Verdict

If Schrödinger's cat is alive inside that box, then FlashForward
is not guilty. If the stupid cat is dead, then the show is guilty. Are
you going to open the box and look inside?